Essays

South Asia

Pakistan

Many
of the Africans brought into the Indian subcontinent entered through
the ports of Baluchistan and Sindh, where they worked as dockworkers,
horse-keepers, domestic servants, agricultural workers, nurses, palanquin
carriers and apprentices to blacksmiths and carpenters. In 1851, the
linguist Sir Richard Burton, who served in the British Army in Sindh,
noted how up to 700 Bambasi, Habshi and Zangibari—all Africans—were
imported annually into neighboring Baluchistan. Females were in greater
demand and were priced at around 50 pounds, while children were bartered
for grain, cloth and other goods. Much of the vocabulary used by the
Afro-Sindhi descendants of these migrants is a modified Swahili. For
instance, the word for shield in Swahili, ngao, is gao
among the Afro-Sindhi; the word for moon (or one month) in Swahili,
mwesi, is moesi in Afro-Sindhi.

Pakistan
has the most people of African descent in South Asia. It has been estimated
that at least a quarter of the total population of the Makran coast
is of African ancestry—that is, at least 250,000 people living on
the southern coast of Pakistan, which overlaps with southeastern Iran,
can claim East African descent. Beginning in 1650 Oman traded more heavily
with the Lamu archipelago on the Swahili coast and transported Africans
to the Makran coast. As a result, today many Pakistani of African descent
are referred to as Makrani, whether or not they live there. On the coast
they are also variously referred to as dada, sheedi and
syah (all meaning black), or alternatively, gulam (slave)
or naukar (servant). The children of Sindhi Muslim men and
sidiyani (female Africans) are called gaddo—as in half-caste.
The population geneticist Lluis Quintana-Murci of the Pasteur Institute
in Paris found that more than 40 percent of the maternal gene pool of
the Makrani is of African origin.

"Mombasa
Street" and "Sheedi Village" in Karachi speak to the African presence
in modern-day Pakistan. The predominantly Muslim Afro-Pakistani community
in Karachi continues to celebrate the Manghopir festival, in honor of
the Sufi saint Mangho Haji Syed Sakhi Sultan. Outside the main shrine
in Karachi, there is a pond with crocodiles that are served specially
prepared food. The crocodiles, which were venerated by Hindus before
the advent of Islam and are also regarded with esteem by Africans, have
become an integral part of the shrine. Although the Sheedis no longer
understand all the words of the songs they sing, they pass along this
tradition to succeeding generations.

Maritime
activities on the Pakistani Makran coast influenced the music of Afro-Baluchis,
many of whom were seafarers who maintained contacts with eastern and
northeastern Africa through the middle of the 20th century. There are
distinct similarities between the Afro-Pakistani drumming and singing
performances called laywa in the Makran and those called lewa
in coastal Oman—songs consisting of Swahili words and references to
both East Africa and the sea.

India

The
history of India's Africans, called Siddis, is the best known in the
region—largely because of the documentation on those who rose to high
positions as military commanders.

African ivory was the most sought-after commodity among Indian merchants;
ivory was carried from the inland to the East African coast, where it was
sold, loaded onto dhows, and transported to the ports of southern Arabia.
From there they would continue across the Arabian Sea, stopping
along the Makran coast, before continuing on to western India. Given
India's large population, its indigenous slaves, and a caste system
among Hindus in which most labor-intensive tasks were traditionally
performed by specific groups, African males were employed in very specialized
jobs, almost always having to do with some aspect of security—as soldiers,
palace guards, or personal bodyguards. They were generally deemed more
trustworthy than indigenous people to serve in those capacities, but
in a number of cases Africans rebelled against their Muslim or Hindu
rulers. During the 15th and 16th centuries, African slave-soldiers seized
power in the Bengal sultanate, parts of the Deccan, and the sultanate
of Gujarat. However, several centuries before these rebellions, an Abyssinian
attained high rank in alliance with the female ruler of Delhi.

In
1236 an Abyssinian named Jalal-ud-din Yakut served in the important
imperial post of master of the royal stable, an honor conferred by the
Delhi sultana Raziya. In India, where Africans were known for their
equestrian skills and their ability to tame wild horses, they served
in the cavalry, unlike in the Middle East, where they were limited to
service in the infantry. Yakut, a skilled soldier and horseman, was
also a political ally of Raziya during her fight for control of the
throne. Raziya's father, the Turkish ruler Iltutmish, who had conquered
much of northern India, had named her as his successor, but Raziya's
brother opposed her. She ruled for four years, before both she and Yakut
were killed—on the run and in battle.

A
century later, the Moroccan jurist and explorer Ibn Battuta recorded
that during his stay in India from 1333 to 1343 the governor of Allahpur
(north of Delhi) was an African named Badr, technically enslaved to
the Rajah of Dholpur. In India as elsewhere in the Indian Ocean region,
the category "slave" was much more elastic than in the Atlantic
world, where enslaved Africans had far less opportunity for upward mobility
under European colonial rule and in the new republics of the Americas.

Gujarat

Africans
have been part of the western state of Gujarat since at least the first
century, when the town of Barygasa (Baruch today) was considered an
Ethiopian town, peopled by merchants from East Africa. Oral history
recounted by Afro-Gujaratis mentions how their ancestors also served
as bodyguards in the palaces of Hindu kings. Among their functions:
to taste the Maharajah's food to protect against attempted poisoning.

The
Mughals, a Muslim imperial power in northern India from the early 16th
century through the early 19th, relied on African soldiers and sailors.
In 1572, when the Mughal Emperor Akbar entered Gujarat, he was reportedly
protected by 700 armed Habshi on horseback. African soldiers and sailors
also received annual payment for defending Mughal subjects from piracy
at sea and attacks on land. Between the 16th and 18th centuries a Habshi
naval force was based in Surat, the principal port in Gujarat, and African
sailors accompanied pilgrims to Mecca, offering protection on the high
seas. Such Habshi naval protection even predated Mughal rule. Ibn Battuta
noted in the mid-14th century the legendary bravery of Habshi soldiers
and sailors. Ibn Battuta traveled with 50 Abyssinians on a ship to protect
against pirate attacks; he called them "the guarantors of safety on
the Indian Ocean." While boarding a Chinese junk at Calicut in south
India, he observed Abyssinians carrying javelins and swords and others
with drums and bugles, indicating the use of Africans on ships traveling
to the Far East.

Gujarati
Siddis distinguish themselves from others in India by their strong Sufi
practices, mostly centering on the African pir Bava Gor, the most revered
Sufi among people of African descent in South Asia. Bava Gor, originally
named Siddi Mubarak Nob, came from East Africa during the 14th century
and made Ratanpur, in Gujarat, his home. The African became the patron
saint of the agate bead industry, having been credited for augmenting
the trade in the quartz stone between East Africa, the Persian Gulf,
and India. Before arriving in India, Bava Gor spent time in Mecca and
the area of Basra in lower Iraq, where he studied with Sufis of the
Rifa'i order, who gave him the honorific title Baba Ghaur, meaning
"master of deep meditation" in Arabic.

According
to one oral tradition, Bava Gor's sister, Mai Misra, who developed
her own Sufi following, came to India to vanquish a demoness; meanwhile,
her brother vanquished the demon Rakshisha of Hindu mythology. This
legend speaks to the historic tensions involving the coming of Islam
to the Indian subcontinent and the transformation of Hindu society.
Misra, whose name is derived from misr (Arabic for northeast
Africa), is particularly venerated for her powers of fertility. Respect
for her may be seen in the coconut rattles used by the Siddis that bear
her name. In Gujarat, as well as other parts of India, Siddis play the
malunga, a single-stringed braced musical bow, found in many East
African communities (and as far away as Brazil, where it is called
berimbau). The hand that holds the malunga will also hold the
mai misra rattle below, which is attached to a gourd resonator to
amplify the instrument.

Many
Siddis in Gujarat are known for performing sacred music as wandering
fakirs(Sufi ascetics) in praise of Bava Gor and other saints.
They perform goma (or dhamal), a word deriving from the
Swahili ngoma (drum and dance), in celebration of urs,
commemorating Muslim saints, sometimes over the course of several days.
They also perform at weddings and birthdays and, in previous times,
at celebrations of noble courts.

Today
Bava Gor shrines are located along the eastern parts of the Indian subcontinent—from
the area of Sindh down to Mumbai. They are often associated with the
agate trade and are visited not only by Muslims of various backgrounds
but also by Zoroastrians, Christians, and Hindus. In Gujarat, the shrines
were a former refuge for runaway Africans and, later, for free Siddis
looking for a space where they could congregate. One contemporary follower
of Bava Gor, Sidi Asoo Appa, served as caretaker of a shrine in Mumbai.
Her grandfather had been recruited from East Africa into the army of
the Nizam of Hyderabad, and her father, Abdul Rasak Sidi Bilal, was
a singer of qawwali (songs of Muslim devotional praise).

While
in the Arabian Peninsula and Gulf Coast region African musical and dance
traditions have continued in the form of spirit possession performances
(zar and tanburah), in South Asia African traditions largely revolve
around the veneration of Sufi pirs, such as Bava Gor in Gujarat or Shaikh
Najib in the Maldives. In both areas, references to the ocean and seafaring
figure prominently with lyrics from East Africa. In the Gujarati port
city of Diu—where in 1838 a chronicler estimated that up to 6 percent
of the population was Siddi—many Swahili words are found in the languages
spoken today by the men and women of African descent.

Bengal and Deccan

Several
kings in Bengal, in east India, secured enslaved African soldiers to
protect and expand their kingdoms. From 1460 to 1481, the sultan of
Bengal, Rukn al-Din Barbak Shah, had 8,000 Africans in his army, some
of whom held high command. Another king, Habesh Khan, was overthrown
in 1490 by one of his African guardsmen, Sidi Badr, who seized the throne
for himself and ruled for three years as Shams-ud-din Abu Nasr Musaffar
Shah. Five thousand of his 30,000 soldiers were Habshi. Sidi Badr was
overthrown, and Africans in Bengal, especially those in high
command, were expelled, as they were then seen as posing a threat to
indigenous Indian rulers. Many of these Africans, both rank-and-file
soldiers and commanders with experience, went either to the five Muslim
sultanates of the Deccan or to Gujarat, where local rulers employed
them as mercenaries—continuing the military contributions of Africans
in India.

Malik
Ambar, who became famous in the Deccan, is the best known of the Africans
who seized power in India. With several surviving paintings of him accompanied
by written documentation, his story is among the most detailed of the
historical Habshis. Born in southern Ethiopia in the mid-16th century,
Ambar was enslaved as a young man and taken to Mocha in Yemen, where
he converted to Islam. Noted for his intellectual abilities, he was
educated in finance and administration by his owners in western Arabia
before being taken to Baghdad and then arriving in central India's
Deccan.

Ambar's
recognized abilities brought him increasing responsibilities, including
military authority. Under the minister of the king of Ahmadnagar, Ambar
commanded both Indian and Habshi soldiers. By the turn of the 17th century,
however, he rebelled and formed his own army of 150 men, which he eventually
grew to 10,000 cavalry and infantrymen, many of whom were Africans.
In 1610, an English merchant, William Finch, writing from near Ahmadnagar
(where Ambar had become peshwa, or regent minister), noted that the
Habshi general commanded "some ten thousand of his own [caste], all
brave souldiers, and som[e] forty thousand Deccanees." The runaway
had become a mercenary general with a mobile armed force. Over the next
two decades he fought for various rulers in the Deccan and fended off
the incursions of the Mughal emperor Akbar and his successor Jahangir,
each of whom attempted but failed to take control of the region.

By
1616 Ambar not only commanded a powerful cavalry force that used British
artillery, but was successfully cutting off Mughal supply lines through
his naval alliance with the Siddi rulers
of Janjira. Over the course of his campaigns against the Mughals, he
continued to infuse his army with Habshi soldiers, whom he trained,
provided with an education in the Quran, and used for his private guard.

Ambar
sought to integrate his family into the indigenous royalty and nobility. His
daughter was brought into the royal household of the Nizam Shahi dynasty
as the wife of Sultan Murtaza II; and his son, Fateh Khan, married the
daughter of one of the most powerful nobles of the land, Yakut Khan,
a free Habshi. Ambar, a ruler unto himself, established the city of
Khadki in which he oversaw the construction of canals, an irrigation
system, mosques, schools, tombs and a palace. He also distinguished
himself for his religious tolerance. He granted land to Hindus, patronized
Hindu scholars, and appointed Brahmins as officials and tax collectors.
When the Habshi ruler died in 1626, he left one of the most impressive
legacies of any ruler in the Deccan.

The
Mughals drew upon the tradition and practice of using African soldiers
and sailors for protection, and Siddi captains were appointed admirals
of their fleet. Some Siddis of the sea were their own masters, settling
in the island fort of Janjira (south of Mumbai) and creating a string
of fortifications along the coast. The island of Janjira (from jazeera,
island or peninsula in Arabic) was a formidable fortress entirely surrounded
by large walls with 22 rounded bastions. It was also known as Habsan
(from Habsha, Ethiopia). The first African to be posted at Janjira was
Sidi Ambar Sainak ("The Little," to distinguish him from Malik Ambar),
appointed by Malik Ambar in 1617.

The
rulers of Janjira, who formed their own royal lineage, remained undefeated
for almost 300 years. Not until 1870 were the British—their Bombay
garrison included more than 600 Africans in 1760—able to finally defeat
the Siddis of Janjira. By that time, they had also become integrated
with mainland Indian royalty.

Goa

Beginning
in 1510, among the key Portuguese colonial enclaves in the Indian Ocean
world was Goa, located on the western coast of India. West-Central Africans
from Angola, Atlantic Africans from Brazil and East Africans from Mozambique—all
Portuguese colonies—formed the bulk of the African presence in Goa.
Some were sold to other Europeans. For example, on October 15, 1777,
the French East India Company asked its brokers the Mhamay family (Goa
natives) for 200 adult men, 100 women and 100 boys. The request was
fulfilled from a recently arrived ship from Mozambique that had brought
700 Africans. About a decade later the Mhamays were still involved in
slave trading. Among the hundreds of African men they sold were five
whose Christian names are recorded as Alberto, Ignacio, Januario, Joao
and Joaquim—sold for 822 Bombay rupees. Such Christianized names assumed
by Africans, like assumed Muslim (Arabic) names, would obscure their
African origins.

From
the 16th through the 19th century, enslaved Africans from Goa fled for
refuge to neighboring Karnataka, but in the wake of the major uprising
against British rule in India in 1857 an African named Siddi Bastian
led a group of fellow Siddis and Kanarese (indigenous Indians from Karnataka)
in a sustained campaign against European forces. For almost two years
maroons under Bastian's command looted and burned British and Portuguese
settlements along the border of Goa.

Hyderabad

In
the southeastern state of Andhra Pradesh, African soldiers called
Chaush (derived from Ottoman military nomenclature) served in the
army and cavalry of the Nizam-ul-Mulk (the title of the sovereign of
the state). From at least the mid-19th century through 1948, various
Nizams kept 300 soldiers serving as their personal guards stationed
in a compound in Hyderabad. These Africans, from diverse origins, were
organized into two regiments, the African Bodyguard and the African
Cavalry Guard. The last surviving guardsman, Feroz bins Abdullah, interviewed
at the turn of the 21st century, believed his father came from Zanzibar.

In
addition to parading and performing military music as a show of force
to assert the authority of the Nizam, the African soldiers also performed
their own music for the court, which included drumming, dancing and
singing. These regiments were disbanded after India's independence
in 1947. The soldiers' descendants continue to live in the "AC Guards
District" of Hyderabad. While their exact African origins are unknown,
the Chaush of Somali background can recount their genealogies. Some
descendants remember their parents greeting friends in Swahili—the
lingua franca for many of the Africans taken out of East Africa.

Siddis Today

A
number of Siddis converted to Christianity in the 20th century and were
sent to Mauritius, the Seychelles and Kenya with support from Christian
missionaries. Those who went to Kenya settled in Freretown, near Mombasa.
However, they remained relatively isolated, given that the majority
of people around them were Muslim.

Today,
the number of Siddis in India, who include Muslims, Hindus and Christians,
is estimated to be over 50,000. The largest concentration is in the
states of Karnataka (southwest). There are an estimated 18,000 Siddis
living in the district—mostly descendants of maroons (runaway slaves)
from Goa beginning in the 16th century and continuing through the 19th.
Their various communities consist of about 10 settlements, each with
between five and 40 houses, organized into an association.

About
12,000 Siddis live in Andhra Pradesh (southeast), mostly in the predominantly
Muslim city of Hyderabad. Gujarat (northwest) is home to 10,000 Siddis;
and smaller communities also exist in the states of Maharashtra (west),
Madhya Pradesh (central), Uttar Pradesh (north), and Tamil Nadu (south).

Siddis
are considered simultaneously inside and outside the racial and caste
classification systems in India and much of the subcontinent. The government
of India has recently granted them "special tribal status," guaranteeing
them access to jobs and education, but most continue to live in poverty.
As the village head of Jambur, in Gujarat, Siddi Aisha Ben Basureem
noted, "We have a lot to worry about; people in other villages live
happy lives, but our people are miserable." Some Muslim descendants
of Africans in Karnataka prefer to be referred to as Muslim rather than
Siddi—as they see their connection to the global Muslim world as primary—yet
they also participate in Christian festivals; some Muslim Siddis in
Karnataka and in Gujarat even pay homage to the Hindu deity Lakshmi.
Such activities speak to the multiple ways in which Afro-Indians have
connected with each other, despite religious differences, and have learned
to navigate their societies.

Sri Lanka and the Maldives

As
early as the fifth century, Abyssinians traveled to Sri Lanka (Ceylon)
and traded in Matota in the northwest. Centuries later, the Portuguese
were the first Europeans to bring Africans to Sri Lanka as slaves and
mercenary soldiers. The Portuguese had preceded the Dutch, French and
British into the long-existing Indian Ocean trade networks, driving
the largely forced migration of Africans into various parts of this
world. The Portuguese colonial state, the Dutch East India
Company and the British East India Company all actively engaged in the
Indian Ocean slave-trading of Africans, competing with each other for
control of territories and trade routes in the region. Sri Lanka, because
of its strategic location in the Indian Ocean, was highly contested.
The island served as an emporium in the Indian Ocean and the meeting
point between East Africa and East Asia.

During
the 14th century, when the Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta was at Colombo,
he noted "the wazir and ruler of the sea," Jalasti, had "about
500 Abyssinians" serving in his garrison.

Among
the Africans taken to Sri Lanka by the Portuguese were those already
living in Lisbon, where by the late 15th century a sizable black population
had grown. Some would have joined the Portuguese crews destined for
the Indian Ocean world, as sailors were increasingly in demand. On their
way to the Indian Ocean, and depending on the route taken, Portuguese
captains may have also picked up West Africans at El Mina (on the coast
of Ghana), at the mouth of the Congo River or the Niger Delta, the Canary
Islands, Madeira, the Azores, or in Mozambique and Madagascar on the
eastern side of Africa.

By
the 17th century, the Portuguese were regularly recruiting Africans
to assist them in seizing or defending strategic ports in the Indian
Ocean, including those in Sri Lanka. In 1631 African soldiers sent from
Goa rescued the Portuguese from an early defeat by the Dutch. Some 100
Kaffir soldiers from Goa joined the Portuguese Captain-General Dom Jorge
de Almeida at Cochin in southern India with instructions to continue
on to Sri Lanka. Meanwhile, 200 Kaffir soldiers stationed in Cochin
were sent directly to Colombo, where they protected the Portuguese—and
were paid for their services, indicating that these soldiers were mercenaries.
In 1638, the Portuguese Captain-General Diego de Mello de Castro led
an attack on Kandy in the forest hills of central Sri Lanka with a force
of 300 Kaffirs; two years later more than 100 Kaffir archers fought
for the Portuguese against the Dutch at Galle in the south. When the
Portuguese finally lost Sri Lanka to the Dutch in 1658, many Kaffirs
simply switched their military service to the new rulers; others settled
in the Buddhist Kandyan kingdom, which remained under local rule. The
local monarch, overseeing a majority indigenous Sinhalese ethnic population,
valued the Kaffir soldiers, employing a number of them as his personal
guards. Kaffirs therefore served Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist rulers,
in addition to Christian Europeans, in the region.

African
military prowess in Sri Lanka continued into the 19th century. Joseph
Fernando, an African brought to Sri Lanka from Mauritius, along with
some 80 other Kaffirs, served the Kandyan kingdom and helped fend off
British incursions until 1815.

In
addition to being used for military purposes, Africans worked in the
construction of forts. The Dutch governor Van Goens Junior noted in
the 1670s that 4,000 Kaffirs had built the fortress of Colombo.

By
the mid-19th century, Wesleyan missionary Robert Spence Hardy would
note that there had been at least 6,000 Kaffirs on the island at some
point, but that their numbers had significantly decreased. The figure
is an indication of the impact felt by colonizers, missionaries and
indigenous Sinhalese and Tamil of the African presence on the island.
The number of Kaffirs is difficult to assess, however, because the
children of Afro–Sri Lankan women who married non-Kaffir men are not
themselves counted as being Kaffir. As a result, thousands of such descendants
are less conspicuous in official records, having had their African heritage
obscured, if not erased.

Oral
histories among the Kaffirs nevertheless illuminate their past or help
corroborate what written records exist. Ana Miseliya, the late grand
matriarch of the African-descended community of Sirambiyadiya in the
Puttalam district on the western coast, traced her community's roots
to ancestors brought during the colonial era. According to Miseliya,
her forefathers were soldiers who arrived at Trincomalee in the east
to help Europeans establish their authority. Historical records indicate
that 874 African soldiers served in the 3rd and 4th Ceylon Regiments
in the nineteenth century. In 1865, when the 3rd Ceylon Regiment's
detachment in Puttalam was disbanded, soldiers from the African garrison
were given land in the area, where they retired.

Cultural
remnants, in the form of music, dance, language and in some cases material
culture are a vital part of Afro–Sri Lankan communities. Kaffirs today
regularly perform dances, accompanied by drummers and singers, using
lyrics that may not be fully understood by their youngest generation
yet serve to preserve aspects of their African heritage. The Kaffirs'
cultural impact has also been more broadly felt: the popular Sri Lankan
dance called "Kaffrinha Baila" is a direct result of the historic
contact between the Kaffirs, Portuguese and Sinhalese.

Traveling
on Arab dhows, Africans populated the Maldives, an archipelago to the
west of Sri Lanka, beginning in the 12th century, if not earlier. Arabs
had been trading with islanders as early as the mid-ninth century for
the cowry shells that were used as a currency in both East Africa and
South Asia. Africans were variously referred to as Baburu, Habshi and
Siddi (the term Kaffir, used in nearby Sri Lanka, was not used by Maldivians).

In
1153 the Maldivian king, who had been a Buddhist, converted to Islam,
establishing a long-ruling sultanate. Two centuries later, Ibn Battuta
noted the African presence in the Maldives. During his stay between
1344 and 1346 he visited the Habshigefanu Magan (shrine of the worthy
African), Shaikh Najib, a Muslim African saint who had died
decades earlier in the Maldives. On the island of Kinalos the Moroccan
traveler was welcomed by the island chief, Abd al-Aziz al-Makdashawi
(of Mogadishu, Somalia).

Africans
had been taken to the Maldives as part of the regular slave trade in
the region but also by sultans returning from the pilgrimage to Mecca.
During the mid-15th century, Sultan Hasan III reportedly brought back
to the Maldives some 70 African captives after performing the hajj.
Most of the enslaved Africans in the Maldives worked as coconut plantation
keepers, planting and harvesting coconut trees for the production of
coir rope (made out of the fibers of the trees), a particularly valuable
commodity, sought throughout Asia for maritime-related industries.

Although
most Africans have assimilated into the local societies, having intermarried
with the local populations, their cultural legacy remains. As in other
areas of the Indian Ocean world, a genre of music associated with Africans
and their descendants called bodu beru (meaning large drum in
the language of Dhivehi) is accompanied by babaru lava (black
songs), whose words are no longer understood by the Afro-Maldivians—a
linguistic phenomenon seen across communities of African descent in
the region where the pressure on younger members to assimilate into
the dominant societies has led to loss of languages once spoken.

Image Gallery

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Porters at a Wedding Procession #832915 - <em>Picture Collection, Mid-Manhattan Library, The New York Public Library. </em>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
In the 18th century, Africans from the East Coast and Madagascar were transported to the Makran coast in Pakistan, and to Gujarat (India). Some were then sent to serve Indian and European elites in the north and east as far away as Bengal.

Young Pakistani Sheedi #198_338 - AP Photo/Shakil Adil
<p>&nbsp;</p>
Pakistan has the largest number of people of African descent in South Asia. It has been estimated that at least a quarter of the total population living on the Makran coast are of African ancestry—that is, at least 250,000 men and women can claim East African descent on the southern coast of Pakistan and in the easternmost part of southern Iran. In Pakistan, African descendants are called Sheedi (Siddi.) Many are also called Makrani, whether or not they live in Makran.

Sheedi Culture #198_342 - AP Photo/Fareed Khan
<p>&nbsp;</p>
Every year Sheedis gather at the shrine of the Sufi saint Mangho Haji Syed Sakhi Sultan at Manghopir, a suburb of Karachi, for their most important religious festival. Yaqub Qambrani, a former president of the All Sindh Al Habash Jama’at, a Sheedi organization, stresses, “It was difficult for the community to hold on to its traditions and culture due to slavery and the wadera shahi (feudalism) that was en vogue. We weren’t the only ones that were oppressed. Countless people were oppressed. But because of our physical appearance we were the ones that stuck out. That’s why we were particularly picked on. It is largely the same today, but it is less obvious.”

Sheedi Women #198_341 - AP Photo/Shakil Adil
<p>&nbsp;</p>
Much of the vocabulary used by the Afro-Sindhi is a modified Swahili. For instance, the word for shield in Swahili, <em>ngao</em>, is <em>gao</em> among the Afro-Sindhi; the word for moon (or one month) in Swahili, <em>mwesi</em>, is <em>moesi</em> in Afro-Sindhi. In Lyari, a neighborhood of Karachi, there is a Mombasa Street, the name coming from the Kenyan port city. These women are celebrating the Sufi saint Mangho Haji Syed Sakhi Sultan at Manghopir, a suburb of Karachi. Sheedis, like the Siddis of India, also revere the African saint Bava Ghor.

Sheedi Organizations #13-17a - <em>Collection of Aisha Al-Adawiya.</em>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
Al-Habsh (The Ethiopian), established in the mid-1960s, was one of the first Sheedi organizations. In 1972, the association Sheedi Community of Kharadar, Karachi, was launched. It traced the origin of the Sheedi to East African soldiers in the Muslim armies of Muhammad bin Qasim, who conquered Punjab and Sindh in 710. Today, some of the most active organizations are the All Sindh Sheedi Welfare Association and the All Sindh Al Habash Jama’at.

Iskandar Fights in India #1597366 - <em>Spencer Collection, Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, The New York Public Library.</em>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
The <em>Shâhnâmah</em>, or <em>The Book of Kings</em>, by the poet Adbul Kasim Mansar Firdausi (c. 940-1020) is the Persian national epic. It recounts the history and exploits of the pre-Islamic kings and knights, including Alexander the Great (Iskandar). This illustration accompanies a Turkish translation (1616-1620). In 326 , Alexander the Great conquered the Punjab in what is now Pakistan. African soldiers can be seen in this miniature.

Performers in Malabar #1244277 - <em>Photographs and Prints Division, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public Library.</em>
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Regular slave trading to India is believed to have started in the 13th century and increased significantly in the 16th century during religious wars in Ethiopia. Most Africans worked at menial tasks, but in contrast to what happened in the Americas, others rose to high positions and founded ruling dynasties during slavery.

Indian Musicians, Early 1800s #832917 - <em>Picture Collection, Mid-Manhattan Library, The New York Public Library. </em>
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Adult men were the most in demand in India. They were barbers, musicians, field laborers, water carriers, guards, soldiers and sailors. By the 1820s preference shifted toward boys—who were more easily controlled than adults—and women for domestic work and as concubines and prostitutes. The slave trade to India was organized at different times by the Arabs, the Portuguese, the British and the Indians.

Muslim Snake Charmers, Allahabad #1125340 - J. Forbes Watson and John William Kaye, eds., <em>The People of India </em>(London: Indian Museum, 1868-1875). <em>Photography Collection, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, The New York Public Library.</em>
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Africans who arrived on the coasts were retained locally or transferred inland to various regions, including as far away as Allahabad in the northeast. In 1811 the British colonial government enacted the Abolition Act, which made the slave trade illegal. Slavery was not officially abolished in India until 1838. Illegal forms of slavery continued thereafter.

Man of African Origin in Assam, India #1125265 - J. Forbes Watson and John William Kaye, eds., <em>The People of India </em>(London: Indian Museum, 1868-1875). <em>Photography Collection, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, The New York Public Library.</em>
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Assam lies in the extreme northeast of India, between Bhutan and Bangladesh. Africans have been present in India for centuries. Even as they have intermarried with local populations, many can still be differentiated through their physical traits and cultural practices.

Nawab Sidi Mohammed Haider Khan, 1930 #12_34 - <em>Collection of Kenneth and Joyce Robbins.</em>
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After renouncing his rights to the throne of Janjira, Sidi Mohammad Abdul Karim Khan established the Sachin State in 1791 in Gujarat. It survived until 1948, when it was incorporated into Bombay (Mumbai) before becoming part of Gujarat. The Siddi dynasty was Muslim and ruled over a population 85 percent Hindu and 13 percent Muslim. Nawab Sidi Mohammed Haider Khan was enthroned as the seventh ruler of Sachin in 1930. A well-read intellectual, he retired to Mumbai where he died in 1970.

The Noble Ikhlas Khan #198_331 - Muhammad Khan, <em>The Noble Ikhlas Khan With a Petition</em>. Muhammad Khan (17th century), India. Opaque watercolor and gold on paper, c. 1650. 4 23/32 in. x 4 1/4 in
<em>San Diego Museum of Art.</em>
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In 1490, an African guard, Sidi Badr, seized power in Bengal and ruled for three years before being murdered. Five thousand of the 30,000 men in his army were Ethiopians. After Sidi Badr’s assassination, high-level Africans were driven out and migrated to Gujarat and the Deccan. In the Deccan sultanate of Bijapur, Africans formerly enslaved—they were called the “Abyssinian party”—took control. The African regent Dilawar Khan exercised power from 1580 and was succeeded by Ikhlas Khan. The Abyssinian party dominated the Bijapur Sultanate and conquered new territories until the Mughal invasion in 1686.

Portrait of a Young Man #12_36 - <em>Portrait of a Young Man</em>, Indian, about 1620. Deccan, India. Opaque watercolor on paper 25.5 x 17.9 cm. <em>Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. </em>Special Fund for the Purchase of Indian Art, 13.1397.
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This portrait is believed to be the Afro-Indian Sultan Burhan Nizam Shah III (1605-1632), who ruled in the sultanate of Ahmednagar, in northwest Deccan.

Malik Ambar #12_43 - Artist: Unknown,<em> </em>c. 1620. Watercolor on paper. <em>Victoria and Albert Museum.</em>
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Malik Ambar (1549-1626) was born in Harar, Ethiopia, and was sold into slavery. He changed owners several times in Yemen, Iraq and Arabia before arriving in India, where he was enslaved by Chengiz Khan (himself an Ethiopian and a former slave), the prime minister of the sultanate of Ahmednagar in the Deccan region. Malik Ambar married his daughter to a young heir of the Ahmednagar dynasty; he named him Sultan Murtaza Nizam Shah II in 1600 and became his<strong> </strong>prime minister. Ambar was in office from 1600 to 1626. Having a deep interest in architecture, he founded and designed the city of Khadki (now Aurangabad), including its sophisticated water system, several mosques and a church. He was reputed for his skills in guerrilla warfare and had an African army of 7,000.

Malik Ambar (? ) #12_35 - <em>Portrait of Malik Ambar</em>. Southern Indian, 1610-20, Ahmednagar, Deccan, India.
Opaque watercolor on paper 36.7 x 23.9 cm. <em>Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Ross-Coomaraswamy Collection, 17.3103. </em>
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This portrait, putatively of Malik Ambar, is believed to be of his son, Fateh Khan. Fateh Khan married the daughter of another Habshi (Ethiopian), one of the most powerful nobles in the kingdom. In 1631 vizier—top official—Fateh Khan deposed the sultan and installed Hussain Shah in his place. Khan held the real power until 1633, when both were exiled to Delhi and the kingdom was annexed by the Mughals.

Sidi Sa’d Lyre Player #12_50 - Mughal or Deccani Painting, c. 1640-1660<em>. Catherine and Ralph Benkaim Collection.</em>
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Sidi Sa’d was a follower of the Ethiopian-born Deccan ruler Malik Ambar. He is shown playing the typical Nubian lyre. Today these lyres, called <em>nangas </em>by the Siddis, can be seen in their shrines, but no one knows how to play them.

Nubian Lyre #1999209 - <em>Photographs and Prints Division, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public Library.</em>
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Nubian musicians brought their traditional lyre to the countries they traveled to, voluntarily or forcibly. Pictured here is an enslaved Nubian playing the lyre in North Africa.

The Nawabs of Sachin and Janjira, 1930 #12_41 - <em>Collection of Kenneth and Joyce Robbins.</em>
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Janjira’s population in 1941 was more than 103,000, 82 percent of whom were Hindus and 17 percent Muslims. The African descendants were all related to the king. Several hundred Jews (Bene Israel) also lived in the kingdom. This picture was taken during the installation of Haider Khan (on the throne with a footstool) as nawab of Sachin; the 22nd nawab of Janjira, Sidi Mohammed Khan III, is the fourth man seated from the right.

Musician in India #psnypl_dan_1767 - <em>Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts The New York Public Library.</em>
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Between 1770 and 1834, more than 6,200 people from Mozambique were transported to Diu and Daman in Gujarat, and to Goa, the Portuguese enclave. Between 1830 and 1875 Africans liberated from slave ships were sent to Surat and Mumbai—half the Africans in that city worked in the maritime professions—and some migrated to Hyderabad to the southeast, where an African Cavalry Guard was formed in 1863.

Monkey Tamer, Colombo #1996792 - <em>Photographs and Prints Division, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public Library.</em>
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As early as the fifth century, Ethiopians traveled to Sri Lanka (Ceylon) and traded in Matota in the northwestern part of the island; but Africans were forcibly settled there during the Portuguese, Dutch and British eras starting in 1505. In the Portuguese period, they came mostly from Mozambique. Many were also transported from Goa, on the western coast of India. Slavery was abolished in the 1820s but continued until at least 1845.

Boxer James Morka #1996791 - <em>Photographs and Prints Division, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public Library.</em>
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In the 14th century, the ruler of Colombo employed 500 Ethiopian soldiers. During the Dutch and British periods Africans from Madagascar and the East African Coast were introduced into Sri Lanka. They assisted the Portuguese in seizing or controlling the strategic ports of the Indian Ocean, beginning with those in Sri Lanka. About 4,000 Africans built the fortress of Colombo in the late 17th century.

Afro-Sri Lankan #1996790 - <em>Photographs and Prints Division, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public Library.</em>
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Historical records indicate that in the 19th century 874 African soldiers served in the 3rd and 4th Ceylon regiments. In 1865, when the 3rd Ceylon Regiment’s detachment in Puttalam was disbanded, soldiers from the African garrison were given plots of land in the area, where they retired.